(ECNS) -- Manicurists are making as much as 70,000 yuan ($11,273) a month on China's online-to-offline (O2O) platforms as venture capital flows into the industry at a breakneck rate, Beijing Business Today reported on Friday.
One manicurist told the paper it is not difficult to earn more than 10,000 yuan a month. "I receive three to five orders a day on average. However, the platform does not offer insurance or housing fund benefits, nor does it allow nail technicians to cooperate with other platforms."
Another manicurist says income generated from O2O platforms is about three to four times that from a traditional store.
Helijia, a venture-backed startup that provides on-demand manicure services, says in an online recruitment advertisement that some of the senior nail technicians earn as much as 70,000 yuan a month. In addition, the advert says 100 of the manicurists on its platform make between 30,000 and 50,000 yuan a month, while nearly 1,000 others get a monthly pay of between 10,000 and 30,000 yuan.
A company executive told the paper there are more than 3,000 nail technicians on its platform and the hunt for more talent is ongoing, as requests for its nail service reach more than 10,000 on a daily basis.
The paper also found that the minimum salary offered to employees at some Beijing-based car cleaning O2O companies is somewhere between 2,500 and 5,000 yuan, with extra pay for additional work.
According to the Beijing statistics bureau, urban employees in the private sector earned an average salary of 52,902 yuan a year, or 4,408 yuan a month, in 2014. Some employees in the O2O industry made even more.
O2O companies are poaching senior executives from traditional companies with the promise of higher pay, the paper says.
Earlier, Yun Tao, the CEO of 1jiajie.com, a Beijing-based housekeeping company, said at a recruitment conference that the company offers a starting salary of 25,000 yuan to those who have three years work experience in the media industry.
However, industry insiders say they are worried bubbles may be brewing.
Liu Wanlan, the founder and CEO of pintu360.com, a website focusing on online-to-offline marketing, says the flourishing O2O market, as well as high salaries, relies on venture capital, though most O2O enterprises have not found a profitable business model.
If financing cannot be sustained, the industry will experience a brain drain, and salaries will return to normal levels as the bubble bursts, it was added.
